Facebook: Narcissism or Community
Succumbing to Facebook

Some people may never succumb to Facebook, but for those that do, there is a natural progression: 

1. After receiving countless e-mails from friends and relatives asking you to sign up, you scoff, even though people at work talk about it at the water cooler and your Great Aunt Erma just joined last week. Holding fast to old-school beliefs in letter writing and personal connections – as well as a valid fear of invasion of privacy – you resist temptation.
2. After learning that Great Aunt Erma has been talking to your favorite cousin Clayton – someone you haven’t talked with in five years – you give in. You join without posting a profile picture and you start with sheepish status updates: “ … is thinking nobody really cares, but I am, um, going grocery shopping.”
3. You find people. Your best friend from preschool! You middle school crush! Cousin Clayton! At this point, you freak out and delete your account or you start to feel comfortable. You post a polite-looking picture and start to get a little bit more edgy with status updates: “ … is currently running with scissors!”
4. You start posting photo albums, videos, including one of Aunt Erma doing the Macarena at your wedding. She is not pleased, but you’ve stopped caring. Your best friend from preschool posts a status update that she is eating tacos and you comment saying, “Yummy! I am too!” Your brain now thinks in status updates.

There is a fifth stage that will probably reveal itself eventually: a Facebook backlash and/or a mass exodus to the next trend. As of now, however, there’s no denying Facebook’s social networking prowess. The site is name-dropped so much at social gatherings that “I saw on Facebook …” is becoming the new “I heard on NPR …” conversation starter at parties.

Boasting over 175 million members worldwide, Facebook has created an opportunity for monumental growth by changing its membership from an exclusive club for college and high school students to an inclusive all-ages format. According to a column by Peggy Orenstein in the March 15 edition of the New York Times, there was a 276 percent increase among the 35-54 demographic from July to December of 2008. So while nearly 2/3 of Facebook members are still under 30, that gap continues to shrink.

With increased membership comes increased discussions over privacy, ownership of published material and if relationships are becoming reduced to one-liners. But over the past month, my thoughts on Facebook have been reduced to one question: does Facebook build community or breed narcissism? The answer is yes: it provides a chance for all members to be the star of their own show, but it also allows them to forge new friendships or reconnect with lost people from the past. For me, the difficulty has become balancing the two.

In the past, whenever I added a friend on Facebook, I would send that person a note or write on his/her wall. After a while, however, I would confirm friends without further action and I started to get an uncomfortable feeling that I was just collecting friends as if I were back in junior high trying to win the student body president election.

I am also guilty of thinking in status updates. As a writer, I can justify that mentality because these days Facebook posts are one of my few creative outlets. But at what point am I performing for others instead of actually trying to connect with them?

I started thinking about these issues when the “25 Random Things about Me” postings spread quickly through Facebook. I enjoyed learning new things about old friends and I started to think about random things about me and what might be funny to people. Eventually, I became uncomfortable with my potential posting. Was this really the medium I wanted to share these things? I didn’t plan to offer anything earth shattering, but at what point was I obliterating my privacy boundaries for the sake of entertainment?

While I actually enjoyed reading random things about other people and am glad they posted, I never formally composed my own. I realized that while I wanted to use Facebook as a creative outlet, I needed to make a conscious effort to actually connect with people, which is why I joined in the first place. I recently started to choose one friend every day or so and send them a note, post to their wall or learn more what they’re doing. And while it’s somehow comforting to me that a friend across the country is eating tacos, I do want to know more than that.

While I have definitely reached stage 4 of my aforementioned Facebook evolution scale, I’ve stepped back a bit and created stage 3.5, which is starting to feel more comfortable. I still think in status updates, but I now try to actually try to talk to people like Cousin Clayton. And I posted a note on Great Aunt Erma’s wall apologizing for that whole Macarena video thing.

Comments:

I appreciate the author's comments about Facebook and agree that it has the potential to build community. I've tried to develop that aspect during my short term participation in Facebook. What I find frustrating is that a brief inquiry to connect or re-connect often receives a response not relevant to the inquiry. In other words I may ask a simple general, impersonal question and receive a response that doesn't recognize or acknowledge the question asked. Of course this is also true of much e-mail communication. People write what they want to and do not necessarily respond to, connect or interact with the person they're writing to. So there is no real communcation taking place, other than simply acknowledging that the other person exists. I'm not sure what the solution is. Another problem, especially in text messaging, is the lack of proper spelling and punctuation, and this extreme informality often comes across as crude, if not rude writing. Who knows what the long term impact will be on language. Again thanks for the article.
Sincerely;
Leonard Nolt


Boise, Idaho USA
4/4/2009 11:09:00 PM

What do you do when your own brother pressures you to join Facebook by saying that it's the only way to stay in touch?

P.S.--Aunt Erma died before the Macarena was popular.


Goshen, IN
3/22/2009 9:32:00 PM

"I heard on NPR..." is a conversation starter? I thought it was conversation ender.

:)

Be my friend on facebook.


Baltimore, MD USA
3/22/2009 7:09:00 PM

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